


Widow & Wonder

by nicoledove



Category: DCU, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: A/A, Action, Adventure, Friendship, Gen, Trust
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-06-21 08:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 18,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15553938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicoledove/pseuds/nicoledove
Summary: By chance, Natasha Romanoff meets Diana Prince. By chance, they end up working on a mission together. Two warriors, one goal.





	1. The Briefcase

Natasha Romanoff was an expert at disguise. A blonde wig concealed her red hair. Contacts turned her natural green eyes to a dark shade of brown, and black-rimmed glasses sat upon her nose. A realistic-looking hummingbird tattoo adorned her upper arm. If anyone tried describing her, they wouldn’t be describing Natasha Romanoff. They would be describing her current alter-ego, Nicole Bensen, which was the name written on the fake ID card clipped to her dress.

“Move along!” barked one of the men.

Natasha and the other hostages were being escorted by an armed group to a room at the very back of the building. If she wasn’t so averse to crying, she would have shed at least a few tears to try and look as scared as the hostages around her. She could see the fear in their eyes; she could see the way they clamped their mouths shut to keep from screaming or crying out in terror.

Using the fake identity that was Nicole Bensen, she’d infiltrated this building, which on the outside looked like a simple insurance firm. The hostages around her were all dressed in formal suits and dresses; exactly how they dressed every other day to meet and discuss with their clients. What they didn’t know—and what SHIELD had recently found out—was that the firm was used to make secret deals. Just what those deals were about, no one knew. _Yet_. That was why she was here.

Natasha was at the very back of the group, acting like she was scared out of her mind. _Tears really would make this look impressive_ , she thought, but the armed men weren’t paying her any attention. There were six of them; one in the front, one in the back, and two on each side of the group of hostages. Including Natasha, there were twelve hostages.

The men herded them into the firm’s back room, where stacks upon stacks of old, useless records stood in old drawers and filing cabinets that were falling apart at the hinges. The ‘deals’ that usually took place didn’t involve guns and hostages, but this one did, and when Natasha had gotten word of what would be going down, she knew she had to investigate. When the men locked the doors behind them, she was sure she’d made the right decision.

“On your knees!” shouted the leader of the men. She knew he was the leader because he was the only one of the armed men who wore a mask. It covered the lower half of his face, and she could see his eyes narrow.

The hostages all did as told, and Natasha went down onto her knees slowly, holding her hands up. The communications device in her ear was so small that no one had noticed, but she wasn’t going to risk talking right now. Back-up was on the way; she only had to make sure that no one got away.

The buyer, whatever it was that he was buying, showed up within a minute. He was dressed in a suit, a pocket watch in his hand, and he stared at it indifferently. Natasha didn’t recognize him, but she spent a minute memorizing the details of his face, in case the mission went awry and he got away.

Her hands still in the air, she slowly inched to the left. No one noticed. She inched to the left again. She kept inching slowly until she was at the edge of the hostage group, and she looked around carefully, doing time calculations in her head. Five of the six gunmen were in front, and one was guarding the door in the back.

Natasha watched as the leader handed a briefcase to the buyer, and the buyer sat down on an old drawer to try and open it.

_Go time._

Natasha twisted her ring and a spike popped out, and she threw it at the buyer’s hand. The buyer yelped, dropping the briefcase and squeezing his injured hand, but by the time he looked up, Natasha had already sprung to her feet, and now she was on the shoulders of one of the men. He desperately threw his arms up in an attempt to dislodge her, and the other men were screaming at him to stop moving so they could aim at her, but he wasn’t listening.

She threw all her force backward and slammed him down on the ground, and she kicked the side of his head before lunging at another one, slamming the gun out of his hands and then ramming into his side. The hostages, thankfully, were now cowering in a corner behind drawers that concealed them well enough to keep them out of the fight. As she had predicted, the gunmen hadn’t actually planned on killing anyone, and judging by their bewildered faces as they tried to shoot at her and not the other hostages, they weren't expecting an agent.

Natasha had already taken four down by the time the buyer had enough sense to get up, grab the briefcase, and start running. For a split second, her eyes flicked to the leader of the group. He was simply standing there. He was stiff-postured and had his gun up and ready, but he was just standing there. She would have expected him to run by now, but he hadn’t, and in that split second, she made the decision to chase the buyer instead.

The buyer made it to the locked back door, and he was pounding it, screaming at whoever was on the other side to open up. Natasha grabbed him by the shoulders, smacked his head to the side, and took the briefcase from him, tossing it up onto a stack of drawers. She would retrieve it after the back-up showed up.

Natasha had the buyer by the shoulders, and she could see he was clearly not cut out for this. His eyes were wide and he had his palms up defensively, but she paid them no attention, turning him around and shoving him up against the wall and twisting his arms behind his back.

And then the door he’d been banging on was thrown open.

The doors simply hadn’t swung open. They were ripped from their hinges, and they hit the floor with a loud bang that sent a shiver through the room, a resonance large enough that Natasha and the buyer both lost their balance and toppled ungracefully to the floor.

She wasn’t new to the simple concept of pain, but she landed on her wrist, and she took a few seconds more than she should have to stand up. The first part of the door-bursting newcomer she saw was a circular metal shield, and her first thought was that Cap had decided to help.

But then the newcomer stood up, and it was clearly _not_ Captain America. It was a woman, wearing...a bathing suit? A metal crown ran across her forehead, and her dark hair fell in waves past her shoulders, and she surveyed the scene with narrowed eyes.

Natasha, as annoying as it was to admit it, was completely lost. She straightened, eyes flicking to the buyer, who was cowering against the drawers. The leader was simply standing by, and when Natasha took one step toward him, he took one step back, and he raised his gun.

But he wasn’t aiming at her, or at the woman with the shield, or at the buyer, or even in the general direction of the hostages. He was aiming at the side of his own head.

“Hill, now would be a good time,” Natasha whispered, her finger pressed against her ear comm.

“Almost there,” Maria Hill responded.

The woman placed the shield on her back, and she glanced at Natasha. Both women stared at each other for a second, trying to figure out if they were supposed to fight each other or if they were on the same side. The woman suddenly reached for the lasso at her hip, and she tied it around the buyer quicker than he could run away again.

Natasha took the gun out from the back fold of her dress and held it carefully in her hand. She had it aimed at the ground, but she was tense, making sure the leader saw that she could aim at him any second.

“Put down your gun,” she said carefully.

The leader shook his head. Even though she couldn’t see his lips, Natasha just knew that he was smiling.

“Put down your gun, please,” said the newcomer. The buyer was squirming around, but the lasso had looped around him tightly.

The leader didn’t shake his head or nod. He didn’t back away a step or move his hands at all. All he moved was a single finger, and the bullet tore through his head and his body crumpled to the floor.

At that exact moment, Maria and the backup walked in. Natasha straightened from her tense crouch and tucked the gun back into the back fold of her dress. She waited until the hostages were escorted out to pull off her wig and glasses, and then she climbed up the drawer stacks to retrieve the briefcase. She wouldn’t open it until they got back to headquarters, but she kept a firm grip on it, not trusting the surroundings.

Not trusting the woman.

The newcomer pulled back her lasso and let Maria handcuff the buyer and put him into a van. Natasha looked her up and down, at the odd choice of attire and the metal shield at her back. “Who are you?” she asked simply.

The woman stepped closer, and because she was tall, Natasha had to crane her neck up a little to look her in the eye. “You started a fight,” the woman said, “while there were hostages in the room.”

Natasha blinked. “I had it under control,” she replied, equally as calm, although she was seething inside. She always did her best to keep civilians out of the way, and she wouldn’t have started the fight if she wasn’t one hundred percent sure that the gunmen wouldn’t start shooting. “I came here by orders of SHIELD,” she said. “Why have _you_ come here?”

The woman didn’t respond immediately. She stepped away, turning her head toward the leader, and she crouched down near him, pulling down his mask. A puddle of blood was growing underneath his head, and his lips were stained red.

“I’ve been tracking this man for a week,” the woman said. She looked up at Natasha. “He killed himself so that we wouldn’t track him to his leader.”

 _I know how that works_ , Natasha almost snapped. She’d been on plenty of missions where her targets shot themselves or swallowed poison to avoid capture; it was not an unfamiliar strategy. “You still haven’t answered my first question,” she said. “Who are you?”

The woman stood up, holding out her hand. “You can call me Diana. What should I call you?”

Natasha didn’t reply. She turned and went over to Maria, who had been watching the conversation. “We should head back,” Natasha said.

Maria raised an eyebrow. “And what about her?”

“We report her,” Natasha replied. “She helped me, but we don’t know her motives.”

“My motives,” Diana interrupted, coming near them. “Are the same as yours. I want to stop what they’re doing.”

 _We don’t even_ know _what they’re doing_ , Natasha thought. “I’m taking this briefcase back to SHIELD headquarters,” she said, because she was not willing to open it here.

Diana nodded. “Then I will come with you.”

Natasha looked at Maria, who replied, “It would be easier than reporting her.”

Natasha, unfortunately, saw the logic in that. Let the higher ups decide what they wanted to do with this woman, and she could get to work on the briefcase and tracking down the true ringleader of the whole operation. With luck, the contents of the briefcase would tell her what the operation even was.


	2. A Leap of Faith

    Before getting into the car that would take them to the SHIELD base, Natasha had taken some time to take off her blonde wig and to change out of her dress and into a more comfortable ensemble that consisted of black pants, a soft, breathable cotton shirt, and a light jacket. She kept the briefcase with her the entire time, out of fear that Diana, the woman with the shield, would attempt to take it.

    Natasha was a former trained assassin and a spy, and currently a SHIELD agent, and she knew her capabilities were high, but working with the Avengers taught her that there were people with entirely different sets of capabilities that she could not match. For example: Thor of the thunder, with his magical lightning hammer and celestial prowess. Or Wanda Maximoff, with her ability to move things with her mind. Or Bruce Banner, with his ability to, as Tony once said: “lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.”

    Natasha, despite being among powerful humans and non-humans, never underestimated herself, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t wary about people who could do super things. What about Diana? With her armor that resembled a one-piece bathing suit, and a metal shield and a lasso, what was this woman capable of?

    Diana, like Natasha, had put all of her stuff into a little duffel bag and was now wearing what one would call regular clothes. Her duffel bag was now sitting next to her in the back of the van. Across from her was Maria Hill, and next to Hill was Natasha, the briefcase on her lap.

    The SHIELD base was still a few minutes worth of driving away, and although Natasha and Maria had exchanged some words, Diana had remained relatively silent, until she said, “Can I ask you a question?”

    Natasha just assumed that the question would be for Maria, who usually had the answers, but Maria was silent, and Natasha looked up to see Diana looking directly at her. “Sure,” she replied indifferently.

    Diana shifted in her seat, moving her duffel bag a little further away from her so that she had a little more space. “You were wearing a disguise,” she said. “Yet you did nothing to hide your face.”

    Natasha blinked. “I changed subtle things,” she said. “So that when someone sees me for real, they might think I look familiar, but they’ll doubt their own memory. They’ll remember obvious facts, that the woman they saw had glasses, and blonde hair, and brown eyes, and a hummingbird tattoo. They’ll throw out their own theory because the facts they remember don’t match the real me.”

    Diana smiled. “That’s an excellent strategy, Natasha.”

    Natasha opened her mouth to ask how Diana had learned her name, but at the last second she closed her mouth and shot Maria a low-power glare. “Thank you,” she said tightly, and then she turned her head toward the front of the van to stare out the windshield, effectively shutting down any further conversation.

    When they got to the SHIELD base, Natasha entered without Diana, who had to wait for Maria to give her special clearance. Natasha nodded at a few of the agents she recognized as she walked past them and into the elevator, and she pushed the button for the eighth floor, where she was to report.

    As the elevator rose, she stared out of the stainless glass and at the city. Daylight hit the buildings and put little glares on the windows that adorned them, and even though the elevator was absolutely silent, except for a light hum as it rose, Natasha could hear the city in her head.

    The elevator stopped at the sixth floor instead of the eighth, and she was about to push the button again when the doors opened to let in Steve Rogers. He, like her, was wearing regular, comfortable clothes and not his Captain America uniform, and he didn’t have his shield. He greeted her with a nod and a small smile, the latter of which she returned, and the doors closed again.

    They stood side by side, and he leaned forward to look at her other hand. “What’s that?” he asked, referring to the briefcase.

    She shook her head. “Don’t know yet.”

    Their conversation ended there, because she got off on the eighth floor, and he was heading down afterward. The halls were relatively empty, as they often were, except for an agent here or there.

    She opened a door and entered an office that overlooked the water and a piece of the city. Agent Rose, Natasha’s superior for this mission, was standing in front of the window, and she turned when the door closed.

    Natasha held up the briefcase.

    “Excellent,” Rose said. “Any concerns?”

    Natasha replayed the fight in her head. Casualties? Only one, and it was a suicide. Complications? Diana.

    She told Rose all of the details, including the newcomer who was probably still downstairs, and then placed the briefcase on the table.

    “Have you opened it yet?” Rose asked.

    “No.”

    “Good. Take that downstairs and hand it over to the storage.”

    Natasha was confused, but she didn’t let it show on her face. “Storage?” she asked. “I thought we would be opening it.”

    Rose shook her head, taking a step away from the window. “We thought it would be best if it wasn’t opened until the investigation is complete.”

    _But the investigation may not be complete unless it is opened_ , Natasha thought. It was weird that they didn’t want to open it, because they really should. But, if there was one thing she knew about Rose, it was that the woman would not change her mind if anyone tried to make her. She would stick to her order, and she expected her workers to do the same.

    “Of course,” Natasha said, and with that, she picked up the briefcase and headed downstairs.

    There was no way she would hand it over to storage without first learning what was inside. For all she knew, the contents could help them figure out who the leader of the deal was working for, and that would help the investigation. She was concerned, however, that maybe the contents were dangerous, so she planned to head somewhere else, somewhere where she had the tools and the people to help deal with it.

    “Natasha.”

    Natasha turned halfway to see Diana standing there. The tall woman had her bag hanging from a strap on her shoulder, and a visitor pass was clipped onto her shirt. “Where are you going?” she asked, her eyes drifting down toward the briefcase.

    “I’m taking this somewhere safe,” Natasha said, not willing to give up any more information than that.

    “Is it not safe here?”

    Natasha made sure no one else was around before saying quietly, “I’m not sure.”

    Diana took one step closer. “I told you that I was following that man,” she said. “I’ve been working on this, and I need to finish this. I need to know what is in that briefcase.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Wherever you’re going with it, I’m coming.”

    Natasha turned around fully. “No, you’re not.”

    Diana smiled. “Then I’ll follow you there.”

    Natasha wanted to think that she, the Black Widow, the master spy, would easily be able to evade this woman, but something in Diana’s relentless gaze made her doubt herself. Diana had not proved herself as foe, and she very well could be friend.

    “Okay,” Natasha said, deciding to give this woman a chance and to keep a close eye on her. “Come on. We’re going to the Avengers base.”


	3. Not A Helicopter

Diana understood the concept of caution and safety, so when she noticed Natasha looking at her every few seconds, she didn’t really mind.

Walking out of the building had been easy, and Diana was surprised that SHIELD was so...unobservant. It was probably because Natasha was a high-clearance agent that she was able to stroll out of the building with the briefcase in hand and no one to question her, but even so, Diana had not dared to look people in the eye as she, a stranger with a visitor’s pass clipped onto her shirt, followed the Black Widow outside.

Now they were in a car, Natasha at the wheel, heading to wherever the Avengers base was. Diana’s duffel bag was sitting on her lap, and the familiar weight of her shield and her sword and her armor soothed her. She had dealt with a lot in the past, and had seen a lot, and the briefcase sitting in the car in between them did not merit much worry. What Diana _ was _ concerned about was the uneasy alliance between Widow and Wonder. She knew of the Black Widow’s reputation and didn’t question Natasha’s allegiance to the greater good, but she also knew that Natasha had zero reason to trust her.

She had been staring straight ahead through the slightly tinted windshield, and now Diana turned her head to the side. Buildings and cars passed by, and she noticed the Avengers tower. It was an impressive looking skyscraper with the A logo on it, and even though she knew about these superheroes and what kind of work they did, she felt a little excited. And a little apprehensive. “We’re going there?” she asked.

Natasha only nodded, her eyes focused on the road.

Diana pursed her lips. She was willing to work with Natasha if it meant figuring all of this out, but the infamous Black Widow clearly didn’t seem to want to work with her. Diana only hoped that when they were in the Avengers tower, Natasha would let down her guard a little bit and relax.

Diana was able to enter the tower without needing any special clearance, and she was thankful to be allowed to walk around without a visitor’s pass. She glanced around, watching for security. Stark did his work well; the building was very advanced, as far as she could tell, and even though she’d seen tech like this belonging to Wayne, she was still impressed.

She let Natasha get ahead of her, and she stopped in her tracks when a young woman appeared in front of her. The girl couldn’t have been past her early twenties, she might even be a teen, and she looked up at Diana, clearly bewildered. She was wearing a baseball cap that hid the roots of her red hair, which was in a ponytail that sat on her shoulder, and a small backpack was hanging from her hand.

“Hello,” Diana said in greeting with a small smile. “I’m Diana.”

“I’m, uh, Wanda,” the girl replied. Her eyes flicked to the side.

“Diana is with me,” Natasha said, having come back when she noticed Wanda. She narrowed her eyes. “Where are you going?”

“Out,” Wanda murmured, putting on her backpack and fixing the straps. “Just thought I’d go out. I get bored.”

Diana tilted her head. The restlessness and boredom she saw on this girl’s face was sadly familiar. “Why don’t you help us?” Diana suggested. She ignored the sharp look that Natasha gave her.

Wanda looked up, something like hope adorning her face. “Really?” She cleared her throat. “I mean, I’d love to. If it’s not too much trouble.” She cast Natasha a pleading, longing look.

“You can watch us  _ open _ this,” Natasha said, gesturing to the briefcase at her side. “But you’re not getting involved in this investigation.

Wanda smiled. “Fine by me.”

Natasha glared at Diana one more time before leading them up the tower. Diana didn’t care. She had grown up in Themyscira with curiosity running through her veins. It was her unfortunate luck that saving the world and seeing it with her own eyes meant she had to leave her family behind forever, but she’d made the right decision. She could tell that Wanda was restless, that the girl needed  _ something _ to do, and if something as simple as helping them with a briefcase would cheer her up, then what was the harm?

Diana stayed a few steps behind as the other two spoke. She glanced to the side, looking through the windows at the wide expanse that was New York City. Diana had to admit that she loved the sights of Greece and France the most, and, of course, she loved the green hills and ancient architecture of Themyscira, but NYC was also very pretty. She only wished she could see it under a circumstance that didn’t involve a potentially dangerous briefcase and a criminal organization that was doing heck knew what.

She stopped walking. “Can I use the bathroom?” she asked.

Both Natasha and Wanda turned around, but because Wanda was clearly the friendly, less uptight one, it was her who answered by happily pointing to the left. Diana nodded in thanks and then went into the bathroom. 

She put her duffel bag down on the counter space next to the sink and zipped it open. She peeled off her clothes and put on her armor, strapping her lasso to her hip and her sword to the sheath on her back, and then she put on the black cloak. It hid her entire body from the base of her neck down to her ankles, and only the foot-covering parts of her boots were visible. She left her shield in her bag and put her normal clothes inside, and then she zipped it up again and stepped outside of the bathroom.

The other two women had waited for her, and Natasha raised an eyebrow upon seeing the cloak. It was obvious—to Natasha, at least—what she was wearing underneath. “We’re in the middle of a situation,” Diana said, shrugging. “You never know when battle starts.”

Natasha nodded, and then the three of them entered a lab. Diana walked over to the windows and looked up and down and left and right. There was a helicopter in the sky, but it would be long gone soon. Nothing else was in the air.

“You don’t have to worry,” Wanda said, noticing Diana’s sweep of the perimeter. “Stark takes security very seriously. We’ll be alerted if anything comes along.”

Diana nodded and wondered if Stark believed in or prepared for winged demons and powerful beings like Ares. She didn’t suspect any of those things to be involved with the briefcase, which seemed to be a human problem, but one could never be too careful.

Natasha put the briefcase down on one of the tables. “All right,” she said. “Moment of truth. Wanda, step back.”

Wanda rolled her eyes but did as she was told. Natasha opened the briefcase…

Packets. Little packets filled with fine white powder were lined in the case. Diana blinked. She had been expecting much, much worse, something like a weapon or a bomb that was being traded on the black market. “A drug ring?” she asked skeptically, picking up one of the six. “Is that really all?”

Natasha shook her head. “No. There has to be something else.” She picked up one of the packets and looked around the high-tech equipment around them. “Let’s analyze this.”

It was at that exact moment that Tony Stark walked in, pulled off his sunglasses, and gave Natasha a look that clearly said,  _ What have you done this time? _

He glanced at Wanda, who was innocently looking at her very, very interesting fingernails, and he glanced at Diana and raised an eyebrow.

“Who’s that?” he asked Natasha.

“A friend,” Natasha replied.

He looked surprised. “ _ You _ made a friend?”

“ _ Stark. _ ”

He raised his hands defensively. “All right, all right. Do you want to tell me why SHIELD is now looking for you? And why they claim you’ve stolen something that should be in their storage?” His eyes landed on the briefcase.

“SHIELD does not want to further this case,” Diana replied. “But we have to.”

“If I know Rose,” Natasha said, “then she’s already sent people here.”

Tony smacked his lips together. “They’re downstairs.”

That was all Diana needed to hear. She strode over to the table, grabbed the packet out of Natasha’s hand, and laid it carefully inside the briefcase. She closed it. “I know somewhere else we can analyze this.” She took the case off the table. “I say  _ we _ assuming that you’ll be coming?”

“Tick tock,” Tony said, tapping his watch. “There’s a helicopter on the roof for your use, shall you choose to accept it.”

Natasha nodded, and she and Diana ran for the roof access door. Diana’s mind was spinning. The briefcase held what she hadn’t expected, and now they were running from SHIELD. She bit the inside of her cheek as she ascended the stairs.

The sunlight hit her eyes, and when her gaze landed on the aerial vehicle on the roof, she stopped dead in her tracks. “He said this was a helicopter,” she said, shaking her head. “This is  _ not _ a helicopter.”

“Trust me,” Natasha said, climbing aboard and putting on a headset, “you would not have wanted to hear the real name, some complicated acronym that only proves his arrogance.”

Diana climbed into the passenger seat of the contraption, and she held onto the briefcase tightly as they went airborne slowly. She could hear the SHIELD agents inside the building and Tony’s voice claiming that he and Wanda had absolutely no clue about anything that was going on, and that if Natasha had gone anywhere, it was to her apartment.

Natasha laughed. “As if,” she muttered. “Hold on tight.”


	4. A Friendly Neighborhood Visitor

_ This is not a helicopter, _ Diana thought to herself again. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but sitting in what was more like a fighter-jet mini-helicarrier combo machine than like a helicopter next to the infamous Black Widow was somewhat daunting. Exhilarating, of course, but still daunting.

Natasha put on a headset and focused on the controls, and Diana strapped on her seatbelt and craned her neck out to look at the Avengers tower. Three SHIELD agents were standing on the launchpad, looking highly irritated. Behind them was Tony and Wanda; the former was discreetly blowing them air kisses, and the latter was trying to conceal a smile.

Diana let out a relieved breath and put the briefcase in between their seats. “Go south,” she told Natasha.

Natasha turned the craft and it starting heading south toward New Jersey. “Wanna tell me where we’re going?” she asked.

“When we get there,” Diana assured her. “I don’t know how happy he’ll be.” In truth, Diana knew that Bruce didn’t mind her company, but she didn’t know how he’d feel about a possibly destructive briefcase and getting the Avengers and SHIELD involved.

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Can we trust him?”

Diana smirked. “More than we can trust SHIELD, I assure you.”

Natasha pressed her lips together at the jibe. “I have to give you that,” she mused. “SHIELD has issues.”

Issues indeed. Diana focused on the horizon, uneasy thoughts circling through her head. This situation was no Doomsday, but it still couldn’t be good. She had tracked that man for so long only to have him shoot himself, and now the only lead they had was in this briefcase, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, SHIELD was after them, too.

“Does SHIELD trust you?” Diana asked.

Natasha blinked sharply. To a normal eye, it wouldn’t have mattered, but Diana sensed something there. She had definitely touched a nerve.

“They trust me,” Natasha said calmly. “I used to have red on my ledger, but I’m good now.” She was silent for a second and then quietly added, “They sometimes forget who their allies are.”

Diana closed her eyes for a second. Ally was a powerful word, not to be used lightly. Everyone always forgot what it really meant. “We’re allies, Natasha,” she said, opening her eyes and glancing at the redhead in the seat next to her.

“For now,” Natasha replied.

Diana wasn’t fazed by the comment; she didn’t take offense, and it clearly wasn’t meant for offense. Natasha had simply stated a fact: they were working together on this case. They knew nothing about each other, and that wasn’t likely to change anytime soon.

And that was okay. Not everyone was made for friendship.

Out of the corner of her eye, Diana saw something move, but when she turned her head, she saw nothing but the roof of a building passing by. She narrowed her eyes, her hand going for her shield, and then something shot into the craft and stuck to the roof.

She blinked. Was that...spider webbing?

By the time a flash of red and blue entered the craft in a swing, she was already in the back, her shield up and the briefcase in her hand. She raised her shield defensively and was ready to hit the man when he put his hands up, and she stopped.

“Who are you?” she asked, holding the briefcase behind her.

“Who are  _ you _ ?” he mumbled, and he took his mask off.

She blinked. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen, he was just a wide-eyed kid who was clearly as confused as she was.

Natasha turned around, and her lips pressed together. “Diana, that’s Spider-Man. Spider-Man, this is Diana.”

It was clear that Natasha knew who the boy was, so Diana relaxed a little, placing her shield on her back and putting the briefcase where it had originally been, safely nestled between the two front seats. The boy, Spider-Man, was gawking at the interior of the aircraft and craning his neck so he could look her in the eye.

“You can call me Peter,” he said, sticking a hand out.

She shook his hand, looking past him at the city, which they had still not gotten out of. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

He glanced at Natasha. “Mr. Stark told me to give you a message.”

Diana raised an eyebrow. “He couldn’t call us or something?”

Peter shrugged. “He says the craft’s comms are broken, and he hasn’t gotten a chance to fix them yet.”

Natasha sighed. “What’s the message?”

“He says that Rose called him and that she’s sending every available force after you.” Peter paused. “And that they might aim to kill.”

Natasha swore. Diana puffed out her cheeks as she exhaled. So much for help from SHIELD.

“We have to move quickly,” Diana said. 

“You should go, Peter,” Natasha said. “Before I put on the speed.”

He glanced between the two of them, taking a second to process what he’d just been told to do. “Oh. Right. Okay.” He pulled his mask back on. “Good luck.”

He jumped onto a building and waved at them as Natasha put on the speed. Diana stared at Peter until he was just a speck in the distance, and then she sat back down. 

“How long will it take to get there?” Natasha asked,

Diana leaned the back of her head against the headrest. “An hour, maybe? Head for Gotham City.”


	5. Red Lips and Glass

    Natasha heard no noise through the headset she was wearing, so she guessed that the comms really were broken. It was a stroke of luck, really: if SHIELD tried to contact them, they would never receive the message. She had already thrown her phone out of the aircraft—the more untraceable she was, the better.

    It was nearing dark when they came upon Gotham City’s high rises. Being a master spy, Natasha had traveled the country and the world and had seen many different cities. New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong, to name a few. Besides the occasional commute to Hoboken, she’d never really step foot in New Jersey, not even in Gotham, which still upheld its reputation as one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

    “Where exactly are we going?” she asked.

    Diana scanned the skyline before saying, “Keep going?”

    Natasha was rather sick of the cryptic directions. “If you don’t tell me where to go, we’ll end up passing the city.”

    “Yes. I know. Where we’re going is on the absolute outskirts.”

    “A friend of yours, I guess?”

    Diana nodded, but she still didn’t give up a name.

    Natasha took the headset off and put it on the dashboard. She stared straight ahead, thinking. There was something she had to do, something she’d pushed off in favor of the insurance firm briefcase. Now that she was in Gotham, she may as well do the job she’d been assigned earlier, especially if it could give her any clues about what was going on with the weird powder.

    She landed the aircraft on the roof of a mid-rise skyscraper, shutting off the engine. “I have to do something,” she said, and she jerked her chin toward the briefcase. “Think you can get your friend to analyze that without me?”

    Diana raised an eyebrow. “Where are you going?”

    Natasha undid her seatbelt. “It’s private,” she said, although it was anything but. It was nothing personal, and since Diana was part of this investigation, too, she really _should_ tell her, but she didn’t really want to, at least not yet. “How about we meet up right here? On this roof?”

    Diana contemplated for a second and then nodded.

    “Great,” Natasha said. “You take the craft.” When Diana’s eyes widened in protest, Natasha shrugged and said, “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

    Diana sighed. “Fine. How long will it take?”

    “I won’t be long,” Natasha said. “How long will the analysis take?”

    Diana shook her head. “I don’t know. How can we keep contact?”

    Natasha pulled two flip phones out of her boot and tossed one to Diana.

    “You come prepared,” Diana commented.

    “Spy life,” Natasha replied, shrugging. “Can’t shake it if I tried.”

    With that, she gave Diana an encouraging nod and sauntered down the building through the stairs. She walked like she belonged there, and no one bothered questioning her. It wasn’t a high-tech, high-security facility or anything, it was just an apartment building.

    When she hit the streets, she walked into a convenience store and bought a hoodie. It was plain and dark-purple, rather inconspicuous looking, and she flipped the hood up to hide her red hair. Spy life indeed, but she couldn’t produce a good-fitting wig out of thin air. The hood would have to do.

    In truth, she didn’t know if any of Gotham’s street trash would even recognize her. Gotham had its own private issues, its own city-bound superheroes and villains, and SHIELD didn’t really interfere much here. There was never anything country-threatening or world-threatening, just some high-level city crime.

    Natasha glanced up at the street signs, looking for Higgins. When she found it, she turned into an alley. It was deep, and although at the start it was lit up by the streetlights, the deeper end was relatively dark. A few people were hanging around the walls, smoking and speaking in low voices to each other. Some stared as she passed, but most paid her no mind.

    When she came upon a few people sitting around a campfire of burning newspapers and envelopes, she eyed the door behind them. “What’s up, fellas?” she asked.

    The man in the middle looked up at her, a lazy smile stretching onto his face. “Smoke,” he said, pointing at the small, rising plume of smoke from their little campfire.

    “Want to tell me what’s behind that door?”

    His head dipped to the side. “Depends. Who’s asking?”

    “An interested buyer.”

    He blinked innocently. “I’m no doorman, lady. You want in, go in yourself.”

    She shrugged. She thought that Amanda Benchley would have more security than a few dazed-looking campfire fanatics.

    Natasha stepped around the group and went through the door, slamming it closed behind her. Amanda Benchley, drug dealer extraordinaire, was lounging on a couch with one leg hanging over the top. She was barefoot and holding her high heels by their straps. When she saw Natasha, she sat up excitedly.

    “Well well well,” she drawled, flipping her auburn hair over her shoulder. Her red-rouged lips framed pearly white teeth as she grinned. “If it isn’t the Black Widow.”

    Natasha sat down in a chair, trying to keep from scowling. Amanda was a difficult woman; she traded drugs but never used them, so she was always sharp and never jaded, and she kept her tracks hidden incredibly well. No one could get any information against her. Natasha only knew Amanda because the woman usually operated in Manhattan, but she’d only recently moved to Gotham. By the looks of it, she’d already set up an impressive base.

    “I want to know what it is,” Natasha said.

    Amanda frowned. “What _what_ is?”

    “The powder.”

    Amanda rolled her eyes. “ _Lots_ of things are powder,” she said. “You have to be specific.”

    Natasha pressed her lips together. She didn’t really have any specifications, but Amanda was high in the market, and judging by the tiny smile adorning her face, she definitely knew what she was talking about.

    Natasha looked around. “This place is a dump,” she commented. The couch was the only thing in the room that looked like it hadn’t come out of a run-down thrift store. An old glass cabinet displayed strange, broken figurines, and a table nearby was littered with playing cards and broken glass.

    “It’s a dump,” Amanda said, resting her chin in her hand and her elbow on her knee, “but it’s _my_ dump, and I love it.”

    “Those fools out there, are they part of your dump, too?” Natasha asked dryly.

    “Those weirdos?” Amanda laughed. “Never seen them before.”

    Natasha stood up and made for the table. She gently picked up a sharp piece of glass and then leaned against the table. “Tell me what the powder is,” she said, looking down at the glass. “You know I’ll use this if I have to.” In truth, instead of cutting her, Natasha would probably tie Amanda up instead to force information out of her. The woman was a criminal, after all; she didn’t need to be treated too delicately.

    Amanda’s mouth dropped open as if in surprise, but then she grinned again. “I would _love_ to be interrogated by the Black Widow,” she drawled.

    Natasha blinked. “Are you drunk?”

    “Maybeeee.”

    “Amanda. Seriously. Tell me before I do something.”

    “I can’t tell you what the powder is,” Amanda replied, almost sadly. “But I can tell you where to go looking for answers. There’ll be something fishy going on somewhere in the city in an hour.”

    Natasha put down the glass. “Give me the address.”


	6. Ringtone Jump Scare

_I can fall in style._

Those were the words that constantly crossed Diana’s mind as she tried her best to pilot the aircraft. _I can fall in style_ . In the case that she was not, in fact, aero-inclined and massively screwed up the controls, she would veer the craft to somewhere devoid of people, jump out, and land gracefully into a roll. It bothered her that she had to make a backup plan, but she was used to Wayne’s handiwork, not Stark’s, and these controls were different. Not _too_ different, but different enough to confuse her a little.

As she flew closer to Wayne’s estate, she thought about Natasha. Where had the woman gone? It was like a switch had been flipped; one second she didn’t trust Diana, and the next she was willing to let her go with the briefcase and their method of transportation, which belonged not to Diana or to Natasha and maybe not even to Tony, but probably to the Avengers who answered to SHIELD. She was sitting in a commandeered craft. The thought was simultaneously laughable and daunting.

The sun finally set, and the sky was clouded in complete darkness. She glanced down at the camera screen that displayed the back of the aircraft and brightly lit city of Gotham behind it. She hoped that Natasha was still there, that the Black Widow hadn’t simply disappeared with the intention of solving the case herself, without the briefcase.

Diana landed the craft carefully in the spacious, green lot of Bruce’s backyard. She hoped he was home. If he wasn’t, then he was either at Wayne Tower (where she didn’t really want to go); off on Batman duties, in which case it would be difficult to find him, and if neither of those things were correct...then she had no idea where he was. Then she’d call Natasha and they’d figure out another way to analyze the powder in a lab that was safe from SHIELD and safe from anyone who wanted their stuff back.

She stepped out of the craft with her duffel and with the briefcase, and she took a few steps back, decided that the black craft looked inconspicuous enough, and then started heading toward the manor. Some of the lights were on, but that could easily be explained by Alfred’s presence, not Bruce’s.

By the time she reached the back door, Alfred was already there, raising an eyebrow when he saw that she was in costume. He pointed at the aircraft. “May I ask what that is?”

Diana smiled innocently. “An aircraft.”

“Yours?”

Her smile widened. “No.”

“Bruce’s?”

“No.”

He opened his mouth, realized that she had not gotten the craft under friendly circumstances, and pantomimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key.

She smiled gratefully and entered the house as he held the door open for her. “Is he home?” she asked.

“Downstairs,” he said. “Where else would he be?”

Diana went downstairs to find Bruce sitting in front of an array of computers, a few long blinks away from falling asleep. She checked the time at the corner of one of the computers; it was only eight in the evening. She snapped in front of his face, and his eyes shot open, and he swiveled in his chair to face her.

“Good morning,” he said, yawning and stretching his arms.

“It’s evening.”

He glanced at the computer, sighing.

She set her duffel down on a table and held up the briefcase. “I need to ask a favor.”

“Anything for you, Ms. Warrior Princess.”

She opened the briefcase and held up one of the packets.

    He blinked. “What’s that?”

    “I don’t know,” she said, taking out all of the packets and lining them up on the table next to her duffel. “That’s what I need to find out. It’s important.”

    “And the craft you landed on my lawn? Where’d that come from?”

    “That,” she said, dragging out the word a little to come up with a good response, “was…”

    “Diana. Are you trailing off on purpose?”

    She sighed. “It’s from Avengers tower.”

    “In New York?”

    She nodded.

    He brought his chair closer to the table, and without taking his eyes of the packets, he asked, “Why do you have something that belongs to the Avengers?”

    “I may or not be working with one. Natasha Romanoff. The Black Widow.”

    He sat up straighter. “Is she in here?”

    “No.”

    He looked relieved. “I’ve heard impressive things about her,” he mumbled, glancing at his computers. “Wouldn’t be surprised if she found her way in here by herself. Where is she?”

    Diana shook her head. “I have no idea.”

    “ _That’s_ comforting,” he replied. “One more question.”

    “Fine. But then you shut your mouth and tell me what this is.”

    “You took this craft from Avengers Tower, which means you were in New York. You were at Avengers Tower and close to the SHIELD base, yet you came to me. Why didn’t you analyze this up there?”

    She was silent for a moment. She really didn’t care about whether or not SHIELD approved of this, but Natasha probably did. She was their employee, their spy. Diana was a drifter; she mostly worked alone, and although she had allies, she didn’t really answer to anyone. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be targeted by an organization that was supposed to be on her side. Natasha was a tough woman, but still. It couldn’t feel good.

    “SHIELD is after us,” she said finally. “So the quicker Natasha and I get this done, the better.”

    He opened one of the packets and stood up. “Give me at least an hour.”

    “That’s fine,” she said, and as he walked to another part of his lab, she sat down in his chair, swiveling around and staring at the computers. Most were tuned into late night news broadcasts, one was on Spongebob Squarepants, and the rest were paused security footage.

When the flip phone rang, she jumped and reached for her shield, forgetting the existence of phones for a moment.

“Is that yours?” Bruce called from somewhere she couldn’t see.

Diana rolled her eyes at her own stupidity and brought her hands away from her shield. She dug around in her duffel until she found the flip phone, and she opened it to find a text from the only contact stored in the phone. The text was composed of an address and three words: MEET ME HERE.

The address was in Gotham, thankfully. “I’ll be back,” she told Bruce. She grabbed her sword, tucked it alongside her shield, fastened her cloak around her, said goodbye to Alfred on her way out, and once again boarded the craft and headed into the sky.


	7. A New Future

Diana landed the hovercraft on the roof of a warehouse a few storage units away from the address Natasha had texted her. As the craft powered off, she sat there silently, staring at the outline of a box-shaped building. If that building held the answers, she would gladly charge in, sword held high...but what if it didn’t? Bruce was analyzing the substance, and she was already anxious to know the results of that, and she didn’t know if she could brush off another dead end. SHIELD was on their tails, the substance could be on the market, and whatever organization it was that was doing all of this would get violent soon if they didn’t get their secrets back.

She walked toward the warehouse, eyeing the row of cars parked along one side, keeping her mind alert for any signs of movement. She wished Natasha had told her _exactly_ where she was so that Diana didn’t have to act like a mouse scared of her own surroundings.

She stopped in her tracks when she hard a sharp _psst!_ She turned her head quickly to the side, noticing a square shaped window on the side of the building through which Natasha was sticking her head out. She furiously gestured for Diana to go toward her.

Diana raised an eyebrow at the peculiar position the Widow was in but moved forward, not saying a word as she jumped up, grabbing the window ledge and hoisting herself in. She mimicked Natasha’s position, crouching down low so as to not be seen by whoever it was that was here.

“What’s going on?” she whispered, unsheathing her sword.

Natasha put something on her wrist, something that oddly looked like an electrified cuff. “I got a lead,” she said, tapping a few buttons on the touchscreen until the cuff buzzed to life with gentle blue light, “that something’s going on here tonight.”

Diana resisted the urge to narrow her eyes, but she allowed her voice to be accusatory when she asked, “You had a lead?”

Natasha looked up sharply, but she didn’t say anything. Something like regret passed across her face before her usual cold, stony expression returned.

“You had a lead, and that’s where you went?” Diana continued lightly. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”

“Would it had have made a difference?” Natasha asked, shrugging. “I would’ve have followed the lead and you would have had to go to your friend’s place to get the stuff analyzed. It would have worked out this way no matter what.”

Diana bit the inside of her cheek, feeling uncomfortable. Yes, it _would_ have worked out that way no matter what, but would it kill Natasha to let her in on the plan? Assembling the Justice League from a group of mere strangers had been less awkward than this.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, reminding herself that they didn’t need to get along, they only needed to work well together. “So what’s going to happen?”

As soon as the words left her mouth, a loud _bang_ sounded through the warehouse as the doors opened, and both women ducked instinctively behind their hiding spot: a small alcove hidden from view by a solid divider. Diana felt herself tense as she waited for the familiar sounds of criminal activity: hushed voices, yelling voices, guns, knives, anything that sounded wrong.

When none of those noises came, Diana let her spine straighten just a little so that she could peek over the boxed-in hiding spot to see what was going on.

Two men and one woman. One man was standing to the left, arms crossed over his chest, chewing gum and blowing a bubble, and the woman was standing to the right across from him, looking peeved. Between them was the other man, tied to a chair.

Diana swallowed. Her heart immediately wanted to go and undo the ropes that bound him to the chair, but her mind knew better. There were no clear cut lines between good and evil: those that looked innocent were not always innocent. He didn’t look hurt, so she would wait until she understood what was going on.

The woman let out a long, exasperated sigh and tapped her foot impatiently against the dark concrete floor of the warehouse. “How long is this gonna take?” she whined.

The man not tied to a chair waited until his gum bubble was blown as large as it could be before biting it to pop it. He only shrugged.

Diana stared at them quizzically, glancing at Natasha and raising an eyebrow. The Black Widow looked just as confused. These people just looked like regular people, no guns or weapons, no gang symbols, nothing. Not even an indication of serious business. It was odd.

“Are you sure your source was real?” Diana whispered.

Natasha shook her head, looking more mad at herself than at the situation. “I guess not,” she whispered back through clenched teeth.

But she was wrong.

Because the man tied to the chair tilted his head to the side like a dog, blinking like there was something in his eyes, and he shrieked.

The man and the woman jumped back, horrifying looks spreading across their faces as their companion (or hostage) continued shrieking at the top of his lungs.

“What the _hell_?” the woman screamed. “Is it supposed to do that?” She didn’t stick around for an answer, instead turning pivoting on her heels and running away as fast as she could.

The man stopped chewing his gum, backing away slowly until he ran out of the warehouse, too.

Diana stood up and jumped over their little blockade, wincing as the man strapped to the chair continued to shriek. She turned to Natasha, who was crouching down low next to a nearby crate and running her fingertips along the ground. She held up her hands, revealing fine white powder on her skin.

“You think he had some?” Diana asked, although the answer was very clear. She guessed that these three had simply been drug dealers, although why this one was strapped to a chair, she couldn’t tell. She leaned down to stare at his eyes, which were wide with black pupils almost large enough to overtake the green irises. “This is bad,” she murmured. “We don’t know what it will do to him.”

“Speaking of bad,” Natasha muttered, and without warning, she jerked her hand to the right, sending a spark of electric pulse careening into a stack of crates.

Diana stared, surprised, as a figure in a high-tech, almost military-style suit rolled away before the crates exploded into tiny little shards. The woman held up her gun, aiming it directly at Natasha’s head.

“Contained,” she said.

And with that one-word signal, a stream of people dressed like her paraded into the warehouse, each one equipped with a gun and a serious expression that clearly meant business. Diana tightened her grip on her sword, aware that, if she went for her shield, they might consider that a hostile move and start shooting. She could evade bullets just fine, but Natasha, as skilled as she was, might not be able to jump away from the aims of twenty soldiers.

After the soldiers set up a perimeter around them, paying no mind to the chair man’s shrieks, a woman in a suit and tie walked in, looking around the scene with disinterested eyes. Her sharp gaze focused on Diana, a perfectly trimmed eyebrow arching upward toward a neat hairline, no doubt questioning Diana’s odd attire...and not to mention the sword.

“Well, well,” she said calmly, glancing at the powder spilled on the ground and jerking her chin toward it. Immediately, two soldiers started sweeping up the powder into a little bag and hiding it away in their suits so that no trace of it remained.

The woman turned in a full circle, sweeping her gaze across the entire warehouse and shaking her head. “A dreadful place,” she mused.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Natasha said. “Mind telling us why you’re here?”

The woman finally acknowledged the shrieking man, walking over to him and putting a hand on his shoulder like she was trying to comfort him. “I needed to see the results,” she said coolly. “After all, with the Black Widow and SHIELD on us, we need to act fast.”

“And just who is this _we_?” Diana asked.

The woman glanced at her. “People who believe in a new future,” she said with a malicious smile. “A powerful future without all the trivial pursuits of today.”

Diana took a deep breath, the word _future_ sending her thoughts into a frenzy. How many people had come close to destroying everything just because they wanted a different future than what humanity was headed toward? “Everyone believes in a new future,” she said, more to herself than to them. “But we’re not going to let you destroy it.”

“Destroy it?” The woman laughed. “In order to build something new, there must be rubble. Granted, I can’t take down the world. No one can. It’s too big.” She smiled again. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t cause a little mischief.” She made a gesture with her hand.

And the shootout started.

With the superhuman agility that had been granted to her as an Amazon, Diana raced out of the way of the bullets, holding up her cuffs in front of her face, deflecting the bullets she didn’t outrun. She kept Natasha in sight in the corner of the eye. The Black Widow was actually doing well; this clearly wasn’t her first shootout. She disarmed any soldier she got close to with her electric pulse cuff, and she avoided the bullets like it was what she was born to do.

Diana set her focus on the man in the chair. She was sure now that he was a victim, and she needed to get him to a hospital as soon as possible before the white powder did any permanent damage.

She raced toward the soldiers, knocking them out by whatever means possible, shoving them and hitting them until they collapsed into one another, until at last she was by the woman, whose face had completely drained of color.

Diana looked past her shoulder at the man, who had stopped shrieking and was now sitting there silently, still conscious, staring up at the ceiling like it was the most interesting thing in the world. A sudden thought arose in her mind. She was standing in front of one of the heads of the operation, and she might never get this chance again. She had to take advantage, even if it meant putting that hostage at risk. Who knew how many lives depended on it.

She whipped out her lasso and threw it around the woman’s shoulders. The lady shrieked out of surprise and sank to her knees, struggling to shimmy herself out of the rope.

“Tell me exactly what’s going on,” Diana demanded, and the lasso glowed golden as its power compelled the woman to speak.

“I told you,” she panted, straining to keep her mouth shut. “A new future. A better future.”

Natasha took out the last soldier and stared wide-eyed at the lasso, glancing sharply at Diana, who narrowed her eyes at the woman and repeated her question.

“Tell me exactly what’s going on,” Diana said. “The powder. What is it? What are you planning on doing with it?”

“No,” Natasha cut in. “Do you hear that? More are coming. Ask her where the operation’s base is.”

Diana kept still for a moment, listening to the sounds of heavy footsteps outside, concluding that Natasha’s question was more important, because it would provide them with answers they could deal with once they got away.

“Where is the base?” she asked.

The woman pressed her lips together, her eyes watering as she desperately tried to hold on to her failing will, and at least she said, “Los Angeles.”

Diana retracted the lasso, letting the woman fall to the ground, gasping. Diana went over to the chair and started to undo the ropes as quickly as she could, trying to avoid Natasha’s questioning look.

Once the ropes fell to the ground, the man stood up slowly, looking around with eyes as wide as saucers, paying no mind to either of the women as he took two steps to the right, nearly stumbling over his own feet.

“It’s okay,” Diana said, reaching a hand toward him. “I’ll take you to a hospital. Come here.”

He didn’t even look at her. Diana realized with a sickening jolt that his eyes were glowing softly, and his skin started to light up with strange, Lichtenburg-resembling veins.

And she realized what was going to happen even though it was random.

She turned around, grabbing a surprised Natasha as the man exploded, as the building exploded and sent them flying into the sky. It was like time had slowed down, and in those few precious seconds, those twenty soldiers who had been carefully knocked out exploded and died, and the woman died for her better future, and Diana turned herself in midair so that she skidded to a stop on the concrete several hundred feet away, Natasha perfectly safe on top of her.

Natasha scrambled up quickly, getting to her feet and pulling Diana up. Diana glanced at the burning mess that used to be the warehouse, and she heard sirens in the distance, and that wasn’t even their biggest problem. Their biggest problem was the twenty more soldiers who had arrived in vehicles and were getting ready to capture them.

Natasha pointed at one of the parked cars. “We need to go,” she said urgently, clearly intending to steal one of the vehicles and hightail it out of there.

Diana followed, feeling her heart sink. “The analysis—”

“We can contact your friend later,” Natasha said as they scrambled into one of the cars. “We have to go.” She started hot-wiring it. “We have to get out as fast as possible. SHIELD will hear of this, and they’ll come after us. We can’t take the aircraft. We have to get out of Gotham before your friend gets implicated. We have to go.”

She was rambling, and it scared Diana that they were both shaken up. She stared out her window as Natasha slammed her foot on the gas pedal and the car jerked forward quickly, taking them away from Gotham as fast as it could go.

“Next stop?” Diana asked dryly. The answer was obvious, but she was frustrated.

Natasha didn’t answer for a moment, taking some time to breathe evenly before she said, “Los Angeles.”


	8. We've Come So Far

Natasha was gripping the steering wheel so hard that she could no longer feel her hands. She’d been driving for eight hours; the sun was up and the sky was awash with the bright colors of a sunny morning, and they were somewhere near Columbus, Ohio.

“Let me drive,” Diana said. She’d been saying that for the past six hours, and her voice grew angrier each time her offer was declined.

“I’m fine,” Natasha assured her. In truth, her eyes were as dry as a desert, and she was blinking hard every ten seconds, but she could not, _would_ not hand over control to Diana.

“What? You think I can’t drive?” Diana asked. She hadn’t slept at all either, but she looked fine. “Natasha, you’re about to fall asleep, and you’re putting us and everyone else on the road in danger.”

“If you haven’t noticed,” Natasha replied icily, “there’s no one else on the road.”

It was true, they were on some country back road lined by trees, no other cars within at least two miles in front of them or behind.

But Diana didn’t care. “Stop it,” she said. “I don’t need you to trust me, I don’t need you to like me, but you can at least believe in me to _drive_.”

Natasha’s eye twitched, and she pulled over onto the shoulder and slammed her foot on the brake. The car lurched to a stop, and she shut it down and took the key out so forcefully that it looked as if she wanted to break it. She looked at Diana and asked, “What are you?”

Diana blinked and crossed her arms over her chest. “Excuse me?”

Natasha shook her head. She should have asked this question when they met, before she’d decided to to trust her. “I’ve dealt with superhuman beings before, okay? What are you? An experiment? An alien? A mutant?”

Diana didn’t look upset; if anything, she looked amused. “An Amazon.”

Natasha blinked. That was a new one. “You mean the Greek lady warriors?”

Diana nodded.

“On that all-female island that you’re not supposed to leave from?”

Diana’s lips pressed together in an obviously forced smile. “That’s the one.”

The next question was on the tip of Natasha’s tongue: _Then why did you leave?_ But she didn’t ask. She only looked ahead through the windshield.

“Is it a problem?” Diana asked. “Does me being an Amazon make me bad?”

Natasha shook her head. “No,” she said, glancing at the lasso and the sword and the shield. “I was just surprised, is all.” She stuck the key back into the ignition and smiled mischievously. “You’re sure you can drive?”

Diana snorted. They stepped out of the car and switched sides, and as soon as the car started moving, Natasha closed her eyes and fell asleep.

_______________

She woke up exactly three hours later to find that the car was parked in front of a motel. She rubbed the leftover tiredness out of her eyes and stretched her arms behind her. “Why are we stopping?” she asked.

Diana opened her door. “I need to talk to Bruce and we need to stop and rest and think before we get to LA.”

Bruce. So that was his name. Probably the same one Tony butted heads with constantly.

Natasha really would have preferred to get to LA as fast as possible and _then_ stop and rest and think, but she supposed Diana was right. She used the emergency money she had on her to pay for a room, and she sat down on the edge of the bed and rolled her shoulders.

Diana pulled the curtains closed and sat down on the other bed, taking off her boots and digging her toes into the carpet.

Natasha scrunched up her nose. “This carpet hasn’t been cleaned in years, you know,” she said. She knew a dirty, run-down motel when she saw one. The walls were off-white with more than a few small cracks, and a musty smell hung in the air. She didn’t care much about the accommodations, but she hated the smell.

Diana shrugged. “I’ve seen worse places.” She glanced up at the ancient cord phone mounted to the wall and shrugged again, reaching toward it.

Natasha shook her head. “What are you doing?”

“Calling him.”

“You have his number memorized?”

“Wouldn’t you have your friend’s numbers memorized, Black Widow?”

Natasha smirked. “If this friend was important to me, sure.”

Diana rolled her eyes and leaned against the wall. Natasha leaned forward, trying to listen, but the phone’s volume was rather low, and she couldn’t hear anything at all. She stood up, and Diana had to hunch down a little so both of their ears were next to the speaker.

“Hello?” answered a voice after at least twelve rings.

“It’s me, Diana,” Diana said.

“Oh.”  A pause. “I’m guessing that warehouse blowing up and SHIELD looking for two fugitives has to do with you?”

Natasha smiled apologetically and Diana answered, “Yes. That’s us. The powder, Bruce? What is it?”

“Sugar.”

Natasha’s smile fell. “What?”

“Who’s that?” Bruce asked, suddenly sounding defensive. “Is that the Black Widow?”

“Natasha Romanoff, at your service,” Natasha replied, but her mind was reeling now. “It’s sugar? Are you serious?”

“Yes. Some sort of modified sugar that attacks and mutates cells.”

Diana swallowed. “And what does it do to people?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I can’t really test that. Unless you want me to try it?”

Diana laughed uneasily. “No, no. Don’t do that. You’ll explode.”

Another pause. “Are you kidding?”

Neither of the women replied.

“You’re serious, Diana? Is that what happened at the warehouse? Someone _exploded_?”

Natasha took the phone in her hand. “Thank you for your help, Bruce Wayne. I’ll relay to Tony Stark that you’re actually more helpful than he is. Goodnight.”

“It’s noon.”

Natasha just hung up and placed the phone back onto its mount. She pushed back her hair with her hands and sat down. Sugar. It was sugar. And what did that mean? That the organization could sell ‘sugar’ and have any unsuspecting person eat it, completely oblivious to the fact that they were going to die. A lot of drugs looked like sugar, but this was different: this organization wasn’t looking to make money, it was looking for a better future. They were going to release this to the public. And what was their goal? Kill off part of the population? Natasha didn’t know for sure, but it was trouble no matter what the goal was.

She shook her head. “A new future,” she mumbled. She shook her head again and sat up, smiling weakly at Diana. “What do you think, Greek lady warrior? About this world outside of your island?”

Diana didn’t respond, she only tilted her head quizzically.

Natasha sighed and picked at the loose threads on the bed sheet. “We destroy each other constantly. War. Politics. Mass destruction.” She laughed sardonically. “It never changes. It never ends.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Diana said calmly. “I left the island because I wanted to help. I was naive, I thought that stopping World War I would stop all the problems.” She paused and looked up at the ceiling. “I was wrong, but—”

Natasha interrupted her with another laugh. “Very wrong,” she said. “World War II. The Cold War. Vietnam. Korea. Syria. It never ends. It never gets better. Loki, Ultron.”

“Steppenwolf,” Diana cut in.

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

“Nevermind.”

“Some world we live in, huh?” Natasha asked finally with an exasperated, tired voice.

Diana looked at her. “It’s a great world. Do you have any idea how much I’ve seen since 1918, since I first walked amongst humans? I’ve seen so much.” Diana stood up and started walking across the room, her face full of sad and distant memories. “Women are now equal to men.”

“Are they?” Natasha cut in.

“Maybe not completely, not yet,” Diana admitted. “All forms of love are allowed. We are not bound by the identities we’re born with. We’re allowed to become more than we are.”

Natasha shook her head and pointed at herself. “Russian spy,” she said. “Untrustworthy, shifty fugitive.”

“I don’t think of you as that,” Diana said.

Natasha didn’t say anything more about that. “The world is still horrible,” she said.

Diana shrugged and sat down next to Natasha. “So what if it is? It was horrible in 1918, too. The point is, we’ve come such a long way. And we have a long way to go, and we’ll get there.” She put an arm around Natasha’s shoulders. “We’ll get there. There’s always more evil, but there will always be people like us to fight.”

Natasha swallowed. How could someone who had been here since _1918_ , who witnessed more than those living now have witnessed, think like that? Only someone who was good-natured and kind-hearted, someone who was the exact opposite of the cold-hearted and doomsday-minded Black Widow would be able to say something powerful like that.

But yet, yet, Natasha wasn’t incapable of feeling hope. Spending time with Steve Rogers didn’t allow for her to not feel hope.

And right now, she felt hope. It was a nice feeling. She wished she felt it more often, but she was glad she felt it now.

________________________________________________

**Hope you liked the chapter!**

**XOXO, Nicole**


	9. Her Again

Diana sipped her coffee. It was pale and sweet, just the way she liked it, and she tipped her chair back as far as it could go without falling over. The warmth of California was a stark contrast from the cooler temperatures of the East Coast, but she couldn’t say the climate shocked her. She felt comfortable in all types of weather, but because she felt the need to say  _ something _ , she looked at her nails innocently and carefully said, “Los Angeles is warm.”

Natasha, whose face was hidden behind the screen of her laptop, just made a noise in response. She was completely engrossed in her work, so occupied that her untouched coffee had gone cold. Her recognizable red hair was tucked underneath a baseball cap, and she was wearing sunglasses, as if people wouldn’t  _ really _ see her if they didn’t see her eyes.

Diana rolled her eyes, tucking her hair behind her ear. She was dressed far more comfortably, her hair loose over her shoulders and her eyes uncovered by sunglasses. Her gear was in its usual duffle bag, which lay under her chair behind her feet. She was amazed by Natasha’s amazing ability to procure items such as laptops, guns, and money for travel, but she thought it best not to ask about the systems SHIELD used to keep its agents going.

Natasha sighed in frustration and closed her laptop, crossing her arms and leaning back on her chair. “ _ Nothing. _ ”

“ _ Absolutely _ nothing?” Diana asked half heartedly for confirmation, and Natasha nodded dejectedly. Diana sighed. They had come to Los Angeles knowing that the base of operations was here, and they’d hoped that they would find some sort of hint,  _ any _ kind of hint, that would lead them to the heart of this mess they’d uncovered.

Diana’s eyes wandered over to the colorful poster plastered on the window of the coffee shop they were sitting outside of. “Oh my goodness,” she whispered.

Natasha turned in the direction, but she didn’t understand. “What?” she asked, lowering her sunglasses enough to look over them.

“A parade,” Diana said, the gears in her mind churning as she worked it out.  _ Parade. People. Public. Oh no. _ “A parade in Los Angeles,” she said slowly. “Hundreds of people out on the street.”

Natasha caught on, nodding. “A perfect opportunity. But for  _ what? _ ”

Diana bit her lip. What could the organization do while everyone was occupied with the parade? They could disperse their ‘sugar’ somehow. They could shift their base, make deals, who knew what else they’d be capable of. “We need to find a lead fast,” she said. “Before the parade’s over.”

“Hey,” Natasha called out to a waiter, who came and stood by their table, glancing at her cold, unfinished coffee. “When does the parade start?”

The waiter looked down at his watch. “In an hour,” he said cheerfully. He pointed at the cup. “Would you like me to get you a fresh cup?”

Natasha shook her head, and although he was surprised, he walked away without a comment. She sipped her cold drink without so much as a grimace, and Diana wrinkled her nose. “I’m not usually one to judge people’s preferences,” she said candidly, “but I can’t believe you like cold coffee.”

“Why not? Iced coffee’s a thing, isn’t it?”

“That’s different. It’s cold on purpose, with ice cubes. What you’re drinking was supposed to be hot.”

Natasha laughed. “You’re thinking way too hard about this.”

Diana managed to crack a smile. “Well, it’s either think about cold coffee or dwell on the destruction that may happen in an hour.”

Natasha’s mirth disappeared as the situation was brought up again. “I hate to say it, but I just don’t know what to do.”

“Me neither—” Diana faltered, her eyes locking on a reflection in the window. She twisted around in her chair to look across the street to make sure she saw what she’d thought she’d seen. “I know her.” 

Natasha looked at the business-dressed lady across the street who’d just climbed out a of a black car and was now making her way down the street, heading who knew where. She sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s Rose.”


	10. I'm Sorry

Natasha couldn’t process the thoughts going through her head fast enough. She dug her fingernails into her palms as the puzzle pieces clicked together and fell apart. It all made sense—it had been Rose who’d denied them SHIELD permission to open and inspect the briefcase, and here the agent was, in Los Angeles, the base of operations for the organization Natasha was going to refer to as Sugar. But, there was always the possibility that Rose was here on SHIELD’s behalf, hunting down Natasha and Diana, or maybe she’d tracked down Sugar, too, and was here for the same reason they were: to take it down.

Each theory ended the same way: disaster. They couldn't trust Rose, but they couldn’t attack her for information without becoming the bad guys themselves. They’d been screwed from the moment Natasha had decided to go against SHIELD’s command, and that wasn’t going to change now. No matter what they did with Rose, this was going to be more red on her ledger.

 _Fabulous_ , Natasha thought sarcastically.

“What do we do?” Diana asked. “Should we go tell her what we found? Do we trust her?”

Natasha wished she had the answers, but she didn’t. She bit her tongue, hard, and then stood up, swinging her backpack over her shoulders. “I need something at the hotel,” she said, forcing the gears in her head to turn as she came up with a plan. She jerked her chin across the street. “Then we find her.”

Diana stood up, too, picking up her duffle in one swift motion. “You go back to the hotel, and I’ll follow her. We don’t want to lose her.”

Natasha shook her head. “We won’t lose her. There are only so many places for a high-ranking agent to go. Trust me.”

Diana hesitated, but she nodded. Natasha felt a small lump form in her throat. There was no way Diana was going to forgive her for what was about to happen, and she realized that their friendship was about to meet its end.

She swallowed her fear and put on a calm, collected face.

She led them back to the hotel, and as she ruffled underneath her bed under the guise of looking for something, she put her tranquilizer gun together. Diana was an Amazon, and that meant she was powerful, and that meant she’d need a very, very strong dose to knock her out. Natasha did some math in her head to figure out a non lethal but strong dose, and the cold, calculated way she did it scared her. She could imagine what the other Avengers would think if they were here, the disapproving looks they would give her. Tony probably wouldn’t look twice, as long as it wasn’t _too_ destructive. Steve would be disappointed. Clint might understand, he probably would. But none of them were here. She had no one else’s opinions to worry about besides her own.

She stood up slowly, the tranq gun held behind her, and she turned to face Diana, who was facing the wall, tapping her foot on the floor. Natasha took a deep breath. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

She saw everything in slow-motion as Diana turned around, her eyes widening as Natasha brought out the gun and pulled the trigger. The Amazon’s lightning-fast reflexes had her putting her arm up to intercept the dart’s way to her neck.

She almost succeeded.

Her arm _did_ intercept the dart, but she hadn’t been wearing her metal bracelet. _That_ was still in the duffle. The dart buried itself into her skin, and she stared at it, the bitter look of betrayal stretching across her face until it was the only emotion Natasha could see.

Natasha dropped the gun on the floor, the word _sorry_ on the tip of her tongue. She didn’t say it. She wasn’t going to say anything at all. She’d done it for Diana, and even though the Amazon was staring at her with the most withering look imaginable, she didn’t regret it.

Diana took the dart out, and for a second, Natasha was scared that the dose wasn’t enough, but then Diana swayed as she took a step forward. She looked betrayed, angry, surprised, but not scared. She may not have known why Natasha had done it, but she knew it wasn’t because Natasha was the villain.

Natasha stepped forward, grabbed Diana’s shoulders, and gently pushed her onto the bed so that she was comfortable. Diana sunk into the sheets, her pupils dilated, and she lifted her arm in a weak attempt to grab Natasha’s shoulder. The betrayed expression remained until her eyes finally closed and her face relaxed, her arm dropping onto the bed.

Natasha swallowed as she stepped away and turned the lights off. Diana was amazing. She was a warrior, she was a fighter, she was an optimist, and she did not deserve to enter SHIELD’s database as a dangerous rebel who could not be trusted. Natasha would handle this on her own. She could interrogate Rose, or work with her, and do whatever necessary, and she would accept that this whole situation was going to further her reputation as a shady operative, but Diana would go home free, and SHIELD would not worry about her. She’d done enough. _1918\. World War I_. She’d been through enough.

Natasha stepped out the door and closed it, shifting her backpack until it was comfortably settled on her shoulders. _Alright, Black Widow,_ she thought. _Let’s go._

 


	11. Dreams

Diana was dreaming of Themyscira. She was dreaming of the green, grassy plains she roamed when she was a child, of the white horse she rode, of the dining hall and the soft, comfortable bed she retired to when the sun dipped below the horizon and took all of its light with it. She dreamed of her mother, who was every bit a loving, kind, caring queen, who Diana had left behind. She left her family, her home, everything she knew and loved, behind.

For what?

To help man, who rarely even wanted to be helped? For people like Natasha, who couldn’t see past their own narrow minds?

In her dream, the grassy plains became engulfed in fire. The horse stumbled on its broken legs and let out a cry. Her bed turned to thorns. Her mother, the queen, stood there in the midst of a burning palace, staring at Diana with thoughtful, loving eyes as she stroked her hair and wiped her salty tears away.

The world was burning, yet they were okay. The flames disappeared. The horse stood up. She sank into a bed of plush, not of thorns. The palace was not burning.

The dream shifted. Diana was standing at the edge of a cliff, the wind whipping around the few locks of hair that had come loose from her ponytail. She watched a plane nose-dive into the water. She dove into the water, and she saved the pilot.

Then she was sailing away, her island home becoming nothing but a distant memory of a place she would never again see. Her heart was full of fear and anxiety, but full of determination, too, and that was enough to give her courage.

_ Determination is enough to give courage. _

She saw the battlefield, felt the bullets ricocheting off her armor. She saw the men join ranks behind her, their faces set and determined.

She saw the airfield. She watched as a plane climbed into the sky until it exploded, casting light on the dark clouds.

She saw Ares at the height of his power. She defeated him.

She watched the celebrations that came after the war ended. She saw people smiling and cheering.

__________________

Diana woke up. It wasn’t an abrupt awakening; her eyes didn’t fly open, they fluttered open, and the scene was blurry. She was staring at a white ceiling with gentle paint cracks and a golden border along the edges of the walls.  _ The hotel room _ . She could hear her own slow, steady, breathing against the stark silence.

She sat up slowly, carefully, the images of her dream dancing in her mind. Tears welled in her eyes, and she let them spill over her face as she stared at the little pinprick and the small smear of blood the tranquilizer dart had left on her arm. A  _ tranquilizer _ . She was an Amazon, a warrior who defeated the supernatural, yet she was taken down by a  _ tranquilizer _ .

_ No. _

She wasn’t taken down by a tranquilizer, she was taken down by her own  naiveté. Diana stood up and gently wiped at her face until all the wetness was gone, and she sniffed, trying to work through her muddled thoughts to figure out what was going on. Natasha wasn’t the enemy, that much she knew. Although,  _ why _ Natasha had shot her with a dart and left her here while Sugar did who knew what, Diana didn’t know. As for the naiveté...Diana supposed she should have known better. Trust meant one thing on Themyscira, but it meant something else in this world. Here, it was harder to earn, hard to keep, but very, very easy to break. She shouldn’t have expected more of Natasha, but she couldn’t help but let her anger bubble up inside of her until it was all she felt.

She balled up her hands into fists out of frustration. She wasn’t mad at Natasha, or at herself. She just wished that things had turned out differently, that they could have done this together. She stomped over to her duffle and began putting on her armor, pausing every once in a while to take a deep breath and calm herself.

She glanced at the ticking clock on the wall. The parade should have started by now. Diana felt her stomach sink. She didn’t even know where to start; should she go looking for Natasha and hope they could get over what just happened to fight alongside each other? Natasha wouldn’t want that. But did Diana want that? She wasn’t sure.

But what else could she do?  _ Rooftops _ , she thought. It was something she owed to Bruce.

_ What do you do when there’s no obvious crime? _ She’d asked him one day.

He’d shrugged.  _ I watch from the rooftops. I wait. _

_ And if nothing happens? _

He’d shrugged again.  _ Nothing wrong with simply enjoying the view. _

Batman and Wonder Woman were two entirely different kinds of superheroes, but the rooftop principle worked for everyone, and it was the best plan she had.

With her sword and shield, she quietly but quickly ascended the stairs until she was at the rooftop of the hotel. Thank goodness they’d booked one so high up; she could easily see the parade a few blocks down, coming slowly down the street. She observed as much as she could, took in every detail she could notice, but saw nothing to act on, no hint of any underlying criminal activity.

Diana tightened her grip on the sword handle and waited.


	12. Eight Minutes To Get To The Flamingo

The office was dark. Natasha’s eyes adjusted infuriatingly slowly. Darkness gave way to a few discernible shapes: the desk in front of her, the door outlined by a halo of white light, the six-foot-tall cabinet against the left wall, the three-foot-tall storage desk against the right wall. A citrus-reminiscent smell hung in the cool air.

Natasha breathed slowly as she waited. She could hear the gentle ticking of the clock that was somewhere above the door, and she could hear faint voices outside. Breaking into SHIELD’s LA base was easier than it should have been...almost as if she was _allowed_ to get in. The thought made her angry. All this time SHIELD was chasing them down, when she should have been chasing down SHIELD. She should have known from the start that Rose was up to something, that all of this was connected to her. It was a serious accusation to make, one that would cost Natasha a lot of she was wrong and a lot if she was right. Either way, she was screwed, but it wasn’t like she’d never been in this kind of situation before. It was just another blip on an extensive record of blips.

She twisted her fingers in anxiety. All of these thoughts were nonstop, she’d been thinking this way for _days_ , and now she desperately wanted to stop, but Rose was taking her sweet time to go to her office, and there was nothing for Natasha to do except to wait and hope that nothing happened at the parade until she was on it.

When the door finally opened and the light switch was flipped on, Agent Rose stood there as surprise grew into her features as if she wasn’t expecting this. Maybe she really _wasn’t_ expecting this, but she should have. Tricking the Black Widow was possible, but never permanent. Natasha Romanoff always figured things out _eventually_.

Her eyes watered at the sudden influx of light, but she met Rose’s intense stare with a scathing glare of her own. She said only two words: “How long?”

Rose closed the door behind her and sat down in a chair across from Natasha. She never once faltered, never once let her gaze deviate from the Widow’s. “With one scream,” Rose said calmly, “I can have twenty guards with guns stream in here.”

“With one lunge,” Natasha replied, equally as calm, “I can snap your neck. Now tell me, how long have you been the head of this?”

Rose raised her head a little higher. “Longer than you’ve known about it,” she said. “How much do you know?”

“Enough to suspect that you’re going to spread this _sugar_ to the citizens of LA during this parade.”

Rose raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “You call it sugar,” she said. “This is a _revolution_.”

“Killing people is a revolution, I suppose?”

“What you saw in Gotham was an accident,” Rose said, shrugging. “We’ve altered the formula.”

Natasha’s fingernails dug into her leather sleeve. “So what does it do now?”

Rose stood up then and paced the room slowly, methodically, like she was a doctor presenting her life-saving research to a group of eager participants. “Think of all the villains we’ve fought,” she said, “of all the battles we were so close to losing. Do you know what advantage Loki had? That Ultron had? That Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver had when they were against us?”

Natasha knew the answer, but she remained silent. She was not going to give Rose any satisfaction.

“They’re overpowered,” Rose said, answering her own question. “Compared to us, they’re overpowered. We’re nothing against threats like them.”

Natasha cleared her throat; she couldn’t help it this time. “We’re not underpowered. I think you’re forgetting about the lord of thunder on our side. And super soldier Steve Rogers. And Scarlet Witch. Hulk.” _Me. Tony. Clint. Superpowers don’t make the hero, you idiot._

“Everyone you just named,” Rose said through clenched teeth, “has worked against us at one point. What gives them the right to be what they are? They never trained with SHIELD, never proved their loyalty. What we need are our _own_ people with these superpowers. Then we’ll mean something.”

“Is that what this drug is supposed to do? Give people superpowers?”

“That was the idea, yes.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “And has it worked?”

Rose looked like she wanted to strangle her. “Not yet. People have stopped exploding, but we’re still in preliminary trials.”

Natasha shook her head. “How many people have you killed?”

“Dozens,” Rose said. “And I will kill dozens and dozens more until I get this right. The parade? We’re dispersing this sugar. This is a test, to see how many citizens die and how many gain superpowers.”

“What makes you think _they’ll_ be loyal to SHIELD?”

Rose laughed. “I don’t care about SHIELD. This isn’t about SHIELD. I want everyone to be able to defend themselves, and then we won’t _need_ a SHIELD. Power to the people. A new world where we don’t have to worry about aliens coming out of a hole in the sky.”

“Anarchy. This will only result in anarchy.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Rose smiled and tilted her head. “Only in anarchy is everyone equal.”

Natasha let out a long, defeated sigh. She saw Rose’s argument, saw where the frustration was coming from. Didn’t she say something similar to Diana? That the world sucks and it never changes? She didn’t mean it the way Rose did. What this woman was experiencing was a power-trip, an insatiable thirst to explore the possibility of giving people superpowers at the expense of their consent and possibly their lives.

Natasha lunged forward and grabbed Rose by the collar. “I’m only going to ask once,” she whispered. “What are you doing during the parade?”

Rose’s eyes narrowed. “Go ahead. Kill me.”

“I’m not going to kill you.”

“Convict me, then. I know you’ve recorded our conversation. I don’t care. What happens next is on your hands, if you don’t go outside fast enough.”

An alarm sounded in the building. An intercom beeped to life and said, “All available SHIELD units to level 10, Agent Rose Cunningham’s Office. Romanoff, Natasha sighted. Prepare to use force.”

“You have a choice,” Rose whispered. “Go save LA and let me go, or stay and fight and let the parade happen.” She smiled. “Your move, Widow.”

Natasha resisted the urge to slap her. She knew when she’d broken in that she wouldn’t be able to do anything to Rose, that she wouldn’t win here. All she’d wanted was to find out what was going on, so in her mind, she’d succeeded. Now all that was left was to fix the parade, and she already knew what was going on with that, too, because she’d had plenty of time to hack into Rose’s desk computer and peruse through the plan files. Asking Rose herself was just an act of confirmation that the woman was beyond reasoning with.

She shoved Rose into her chair and grabbed her gun from her jacket. “You’re an idiot, Rose,” Natasha said as she pulled up the blinds and shot the glass three times. “Never let your computer out of your sight.”

Rose’s face drained of color. The sound of heavy footsteps echoed into the room as forces gathered outside the door. Natasha took that as her cue.

Before Rose could say anything, Natasha got a running start and jumped through the glass. Tiny shards left little cuts on her skin, but as she flew through the air, she felt nothing but hot determination coursing through her veins. She landed on top of a soft-topped parade float, as intended, and she rolled over the edge and swung into the hatch that led inside the float. She peeked through a small opening in the front to stare at the flamingo float a few floats down.

She took a deep breath. She had eight minutes to get there before the sugar was dispersed.


	13. Waiting is Absolute Torture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to get this update out, I've been busy. Thanks for sticking with the story!

Diana stood stock-still. The parade was directly below her. If anyone looked up, what would they see? Would they see a cosplayer who’d managed to get a perfect view of the parade? A delusional maniac who was, thankfully, far away from the crowds?

Did anyone down there know how much danger they were in?

“Diana—”

She whirled around before the sentence was finished, the tip of her sword against the person’s neck. He threw up his hands immediately, his lips pulled into a tight little grimace that was not surprised.

Diana dropped her sword and groaned. One miscalculation, and she would’ve decapitated her friend. “What are you  _ doing _ here?”

Bruce straightened his coat. “You sound disappointed,” he said.

She tried not to look irritated that he’d picked up on that. A tiny hope had lit within her that maybe,  _ maybe _ , Natasha would come and tell her what was going on, but she knew that was irrational and as likely as pigs flying.

“You didn’t answer the question,” she grumbled, turning her attention back to the parade. A nervous anxiety had seized her heart since the day this all began, and now that anxiety was on the verge of crushing her. Something was going to happen, but it still hadn’t happened and there was nothing she could do  _ until _ it happened.

Waiting was absolute torture.

He stood next to her, bending over to look directly down at the floats. Then he took something out of the inside of his coat and handed it to her.

Her fingers closed around a metal tube with a small button. She pushed it, and the upper fourth of the tube sprung up, revealing a set of four syringes.

She blinked. “Antidotes?”

He nodded.

She closed the tube. “Thank you,” she murmured. Then she winced. “Do you think it will get that far?”

He shrugged again. “Depends on if you plan on staying on this roof all day.”

She groaned. “ _ I know _ . I don’t know what else to do.”

“Where’s the Widow?”

“I don’t know.” Diana left it at that; no need to reveal that she’d been betrayed. “How did you find me?”

“I have resources.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t implanted a tracker on me, have you?”

He laughed nervously. “I wouldn’t dare do that.”

She scrutinized him for a second longer, but she was satisfied with his answer and settled back onto her feet, breathing slowly through her mouth. “Do you plan on joining in?”

He shook his head and moved one foot forward; he had a boot on it. She didn’t remember seeing that in Gotham. The fragility of mortals still surprised her sometimes. “Did you break your foot?” she asked.

“Kind of. I only came to give these to you.” He looked down at his watch. “I should go.”

She glanced over her shoulder to see a not-a-helicopter of his own parked on the roof. “Very subtle,” she chided. How had she not noticed that when it landed? She was probably too busy seething over her idleness. 

He turned to face her while he was headed toward it and winked. “I’ll take any chance to upstage Stark.”

She laughed and held up the metal tube. “Thank you.”

He gave her a little nod, and just a minute later, he was gone. 

Diana held the tube close to her chest as she turned her attention forward again. It was taking too long; she was gaining no advantage or intel by watching from above, so it was time to go down. She glanced at the stairs, shook her head, and strapped her shield to her back. It was almost perfect; how well the rooftops leveled down like stairs from building to building. Who cared if anyone saw her?

She certainly didn’t.

Diana got a running start, and when she hit the edge of the roof, she leaped into the air. She kept up her jumping and running roofs across roofs, each one shorter than the last.

She was on her way down.

* * *

Natasha had punched a hole through the float.

It wasn’t her proudest moment, destroying something that volunteers spent countless hours making, but the hole was small and it was a matter of life and death for thousands of people, so she didn’t feel too guilty.

She stuck her arm through and felt around for the latch. She didn’t plan on going out the same way she’d come in; she needed to go out front. She had seven minutes and fourteen seconds remaining.

She found the latch, pulled it, and an opening below her sprung open and she dropped onto the road. She rolled out the front and stood up gracefully, quickening her pace to match the speed of the parade. The light of the day was blinding, a contrast from the dimness of the float’s interior, but she blinked hard twice and got over it fast.

People had noticed her roll out of the bottom of the float, of course, but they either thought it was part of the show or wisely chose not to say anything about it. She sped up, swerving around the truck that slowly pulled the float along. Confetti stuck to her hair and piled onto her shoulders, and she kept a silly smile plastered onto her face. She wanted to run to the float, but that would look too obvious, and she knew Rose's agents were definitely already guarding the flamingo. The last thing she needed was to be found out so quickly.

She grabbed a confetti cannon from a passersby and tucked it into her belt. She never underestimated the use of everyday objects as weapons; this cannon would be an excellent distraction to shove onto someone’s face.

Six minutes and fifty-five seconds.

She was only two floats away when all hell broke loose.


	14. Freeze

A single gunshot rang out into the air. Natasha ducked instinctively and threw her arms over her head in protection; but the bullet hadn’t been aimed at her. It was probably aimed in the air, but the ensuing panic as people screamed and started running around blocked her view, and she couldn’t see the gunman. All she knew was that the shot was toward the front of the parade.

Which was exactly where she had to go.

She started running as fast as her legs could carry her, aware that the floats had stopped moving. Her heart pounded against her ribs as her shoes slapped the road, and she was cursing in her head. She should’ve seen this coming; even in the mania of the thousands of people running around and screaming in panic, the new aerosol technology Rose had commissioned inside the Flamingo Float would still succeed in spraying these people. When they inhaled, they might not even feel the compound binding with their blood, altering them to give them superpowers. Well, maybe the compound actually hadn’t been perfected yet and they’d explode, but that was another can of worms.

The course of action was simple: Natasha had to stop the timer before the aerosol dispersed. There was no backup plan.

_ Easy peasy. _

The first opponent stepped out from behind a float; one of Rose’s corrupted agents. Natasha stuck up her middle finger at him while he unholstered his gun, but even before he could aim, she jumped onto his shoulders and twisted him around, ramming him right into the float. She ran right along to the next man, punching him in the stomach and then launching the confetti cannon into his face. She allowed herself to relish his shocked expression before she punched him again and took his stun gun out of his belt.

Two down, probably a dozen more or so to go.

She stunned one before he was within five feet of her, but the other managed to get close, and he grabbed a fistful of her hair. Natasha bit her tongue to keep from crying out; a fighter’s mindset had told her numerous times to have her hair cut pixie-short so it would be difficult to grab, but she could never bring herself to go through with it. She brought her knee up into his stomach so he would release his hold, and she kicked him into another agent and turned on her heel and continued to run.

Did she know how to diffuse the technology? Yes; she had to cut the red wire. Did that mean it would be over? No. After she cut the red wire, she had to escape before the agents caught her, or else Rose would go free. As she ran to the float, she mapped out an escape route in her head. She was short on time; she would have to escape the agents and the LAPD...and she had to get out of here before Diana woke up and started out on hunting Rose herself.

The bright pink flamingo came into view. Natasha ducked under the legs of one agent—kicking his ankles and making him lose his balance as she did so—and rolled back onto her feet.

A few yards away. A few feet. Her hand reached toward the float door handle…

The air was squeezed out of her lungs as an agent wrapped his arms around her from behind, picked her up into the air and slammed her down onto the road. She gaped like a fish, spots dancing around in her vision, her entire body feeling numb. She stared as his fist came crashing down toward her face, and a scowl worked its way onto her expression and she moved out of the way at the last possible second and let his fist crash into the road.

He yelped and she kicked him away, standing up and getting a weak running start toward the float handle. 

“Freeze.”

Natasha didn’t freeze at first; she kept running and only spared the agent a glance over her shoulder. Then she froze. 

He was holding a proton blaster, aimed right at her. She knew how powerful that thing was, it would kill her and then hit the float, destroying any hope she had of stopping the tech. Natasha’s fingers curled into fists, but she forced herself to turn around completely and face him. 

There were a few yards between them; that was too much space. If she ran at him in surprise, he would still have enough time to blast her or the float. If she jumped out of the way, the blast would still hit the float. She had no way of moving the float itself.

The man’s lips twitched, it was obvious he was trying to hide a smile. It wasn’t everyday that a regular old SHIELD agent was able to best an Avenger. “Bye, bye, Spider,” he said.

Everything went in slow motion after that. The proton blaster grew white-hot and let loose a beam of energy. Natasha threw her arms over her head; it was too late, she would not have time to move.

And then a crashing sound, of the beam hitting something. Metal? Her? Natasha was holding her breath, waiting to disintegrate, but it didn’t happen. The beam’s high-pitched noise intensified. Was this it? Was she too numb to feel herself burning up?

But no, that wasn’t it. Natasha opened her eyes; all she could see in front of her was an oddly shaped silhouette against the brightness of the proton beam being deflected all over them. Someone was letting out a battle cry.

The beam stopped. The silhouette lowered her shield to her side, not a single scratch on it despite taking the full force of the beam.

The silhouette turned around, and Natasha stared at her.

It was Diana.


End file.
